Building a creative business from the ground-up has a lot of prioritization and productivity challenges. For the last few months I have spent time trying to, at the very least, orient myself in the direction that I want to go in: an ecommerce/web/software studio (still probably not specific enough); my passive income interests by way of mxpc.art; mentor, operator, and friend to Recess.
As you can imagine, this is practically a million moving parts. Tell me to use a productivity system, I dare you. If you saw the private areas of my Notion you’ll see the kanbans, the eat-the-frogs, the daily trifectas and task batching; my google calendar stuffed with time blocks that fire out notifications for when I need to shift gears; my internal trauma of Get Shit Done and other frameworks learned at Shopify, including what I realized is called the pilot, the plane, the engineer mental model; analog long form and bullet journalling. I’m prepared.
And yet—my anxiety of not getting enough done is eating away at me in little moments. I’m not saying it’s the best use of my time and energy — it isn’t, I’ve done months of this and I’m starting to resent myself for it — but productive procrastination has been the name of my game. I’m defining this as procrastinating the big task at hand — the big task that gets you to done, not perfect — by doing smaller, not-as-important-but-peripherally-would-be-useful tasks. I give myself reluctant high-fives for this because I think it’s something future me would appreciate.
I realize this is something that Warren Buffet warns his employees about in a 3-step productivity strategy, as outlined by James Clear in his post, ‘Warren Buffet’s “2 list strategy”: How to maximize your focus and master your priorities. You’re essentially writing out a list of [25] things that you want to do, circle your top 5 things, and avoid everything else at all costs.
“Well, the top 5 are my primary focus, but the other 20 come in a close second. They are still important so I’ll work on those intermittently as I see fit. They are not as urgent, but I still plan to give them a dedicated effort.”
To which Buffett replied, “No. You’ve got it wrong… Everything you didn’t circle just became your Avoid-At-All-Cost list. No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top 5.”
…
Items 6 through 25 on your list are things you care about. They are important to you. It is very easy to justify spending your time on them. But when you compare them to your top 5 goals, these items are distractions. Spending time on secondary priorities is the reason you have 20 half-finished projects instead of 5 completed ones.
Eliminate ruthlessly. Force yourself to focus. Complete a task or kill it.
The most dangerous distractions are the ones you love, but that don’t love you back.
I don’t think I’ve been honest about my time. I’ve essentially been saying the same: they are still important so I’ll work on those intermittently as I see fit. And so, for the last couple of months, I’ve been trying to be more honest with myself about what really needs to get done: if there’s 1-2 things I need to do for me to get more projects in the door, what needs to happen? I thought maybe one of the things on that list was updating my website to include some work. It’s not.
I recently pivoted to focusing on a product/UX PDF portfolio that I could send out to clients and agencies, and also reluctantly building out a list of people to reach out to for work. Things are moving a lot faster (minus the productive procrastination in having written this out. It’s a brain dump. I needed it.) and I’m about ready to send it out.
This is probably stuff that’s not new to my seasoned peers. Fuck, this isn’t even new to me. This was probably more a journal entry compared to everything else I’ve written here, but also a solid reminder that it’s okay to share my frustration, it’s okay to pivot, it’s okay to not be perfect, it’s okay to start today. This is the year to just do the thing. I’ve been afraid of not being ready enough, but you’re never really ready — you’re never really done, and you’ll never be perfect. This year, we fail. We fail because it means we did the thing and we know what to do next.
Linked Resources
The Pilot, The Plane, The Engineer
Not Overthinking is the weekly podcast hosted by me and my brother.
https://email.aliabdaal.com/issues/the-pilot-the-plane-the-engineer-258332
Warren Buffett's "2 List" Strategy: How to Maximize Your Focus and Master Your Priorities
With well over 50 billion dollars to his name, Warren Buffett is consistently ranked among the wealthiest people in the world.
https://jamesclear.com/buffett-focus
If You Commit to Nothing, You'll Be Distracted By Everything
In the northeastern hills outside Kyoto, Japan there is a mountain known as Mount Hiei.
https://jamesclear.com/mental-toughness-marathon-monks